Greetings change-embracing viewers, and welcome to Healthy Living on Supreme Master Television. March 20 is the first day of spring in the Northern Hemisphere and also marks the 25th anniversary of Meatout Day, one of the world’s largest annual grassroots information campaigns regarding the plant-based diet.

In honor of this upcoming special occasion, today we feature excerpts of interviews with experts and people from all backgrounds regarding the wholesome, green and compassionate vegan diet. The first Meatout Day was organized in 1985 by the Farm Animal Rights Movement (FARM), a US-based non-profit group promoting the vegan diet to save animals, protect the environment, and improve health. The day’s popularity has grown exponentially over the past 25 years.

Currently I am not a vegetarian. However, since I’ve visited here, it’s just been so enlightening. It’s made me want to now increase my knowledge of it as well as to even change my diet to live a healthier lifestyle.

It’s a simple formula and I’m surprised myself how easy it works. Its worked miracles in my life. I could not ever, in many lifetimes have shown enough kindness than what just eating one vegetarian meal has shown me.

In the US, governors of the states of Connecticut, Indiana, and New Hampshire and the mayors of the cities of Baltimore, El Paso, Memphis, Honolulu, and Houston all issued official proclamations supporting Meatout Day 2009.

“Whereas a wholesome plant-based diet of whole grains, vegetables and fresh fruits reduces the risk of heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes and other chronic and infectious diseases that cripple and kill nearly 1.3 million Americans annually; and whereas a diet that helps enormously in reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases that produce global warming; and whereas such diet helps prevent the suffering and death of more than10 billion sentient animals in the United States each year, the City of Houston salutes those committed to this challenging and worthwhile campaign, and extends best wishes to all for the successful and rewarding event. Therefore I, Bill White, Mayor of the City of Houston hereby proclaim March 20, 2009 as Great American Meatout Day.”

In 2009, around 1000 communities in 30 countries celebrated Meatout Day through a variety of activities. Participating nations included Argentina, Australia, Belarus, Canada, Croatia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, France, Germany, Greece, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Kenya, Mongolia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Peru, Philippines, Portugal, Romania, Rwanda, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, South Korea, UK, USA, and Zambia.

Some communities hosted festivals with veg vendor exhibits and information booths; others offered lectures on the plant-based diet and vegan cooking demonstrations. Still others distributed flyers on the benefits of an animal-free diet and promoted people going online and pledging to become vegetarian.

This March 20, we all will be joined here in Peru and in the world for Meatout Day. Let’s save our Mother Earth!

I’m joining Meatout Day. Let’s take meat out of our diets.

Peace be upon you. In solidarity with the Climate Change Day of Action, I urge all the viewers to not eat any meat or related products.

A plant-based diet can eventually save our Earth and improve my health also.

This year’s theme is “Eat for Life –Live Vegan!” It is an excellent opportunity for people to explore this compassionate diet and make a most important lifestyle change.

I found out a lot of great information and I’m even thinking about changing my diet, just doing the vegetable thing to see if I could feel better and be healthier.

They [doctors] had actually said I wasn’t going to be able to walk again. And I can run up and down stairs till this day. If you ever want to change your life, start with your diet.

The health benefits of the plant-based diet have been proven and endorsed by major public and private institutions in the US such as the National Science Foundation, the American Cancer Society, the National Cancer Institute, the American Heart Association, and Johns Hopkins University, USA.

If you want to avoid heart disease, cancer of the prostate, the breast, uterus, pancreas, and many other health maladies, you want to take MEAT OUT. Meat is the only source of cholesterol and also the source of many hormones. Cooking meat is harmful because it produces cancer-causing agents. Chicken can give you more cancer-causing agents than red meat. I also think that meat can affect human behavior. If people were more vegan, it will cause less war.

Plant-based diets create health, prevent disease and the benefits are enormous especially in term of controlling the health care costs. Health care costs can be reduced substantially if for example everyone were to switch over to whole food plant-based diet.

We eat three times a day and what a perfect opportunity to not eat animals at least for one day, to try it for one day, your breakfast, your lunch, your dinner, to go without, and to discover something else that is not only better for you, certainly better for the environment, and completely totally better for the animals. So I encourage everybody for at least one day and maybe the first of many, on Meatout Day to stop eating animals.

There is nothing more important that you could do for yourself right now than to look at it and say, “The Great American Meatout is one day with no animal product. Maybe what I ought to do is just become a vegan for 30 or 60 days and see how that works for me, and maybe I’ll change my diet or I’ll become a vegan forever.”

Healthy Living will be right back after these messages. Please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television.

Meatout is celebrated the first day of spring every year, the time of year for a new beginning. When you get the meat out of your diet, you begin a healthier, more compassionate and environmentally responsible lifestyle. Now more than ever we all need to get the meat out of our diet. Healthcare costs in the United States for heart disease alone are US$250 billion annually. Who can afford meat and dairy anymore?

Welcome back to Healthy Living on Supreme Master Television as we continue our program celebrating Meatout Day 2010. We now recap some of the clear evidence why it’s best to shun animal products.

In the United States, spending on healthcare accounts for a staggering 17.3% of the total Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Cardiovascular disease, cancer, and stroke, all severe, chronic health conditions largely caused by the consumption of animal products are the leading causes of death in the USA.

Currently 20% of US youth between the ages of six and 19 are obese, compared to only 6.5% in 1980. Experts point to the high intake of high-fat meat and dairy products and processed foods for this disturbing trend. In 2009, the swine flu virus, which traces its origins to factory farms, became a global pandemic and continues to this day to take lives.

It has been calculated that the cycle of the production and consumption of animal products is responsible for more than 51% of global greenhouse gas emissions and thus the number one cause of climate change. Once rainforests covered 14% of the Earth’s land surface, but now only cover 6% mostly due to clearing of land to grow animal feed or for livestock grazing.

I pledge to go veg on Meatout Day.

What I’m concerned about: are we going to make the change before it’s too late? And if we are going to make sure that there is a future, remember, it’s a responsibility that each and every one of us have. So, let’s start today. Let’s start with joining The Great American Meatout. Make sure that it’s not just today, join the American Meatout forever.

Every day, there’s more consciousness. This is a consciousness to protect animals from abuse and to protect health.

This year there’s 40% more people than last year. So, it makes me feel very happy because people have a chance of eating better and they develop awareness about the importance of eating well, and protecting the planet and respecting the other life forms.

As for food shopping, nutritious vegan options are more accessible than ever.

I am here today in Oasis Natural Products, which is a health food store in Croydon (UK), and in this store every day is Meatout Day. So, let me just take you around a few of the new things that are available for vegetarians and vegans these days.

There is soy milk, there is quinoa milk, there is almond milk, there is rice milk, there is milk with barley. Once you open your eyes to it, you will just see a whole host of different things. There’s even sorts of things like vegan turkey steaks that you can get.

Signs are encouraging for the vegan trend. The cities of Ghent, Belgium, São Paulo, Brazil, and Bremen, Germany have all designated one day a week to be a meatless day where all residents are encouraged to eat plant-based foods.

Many schools worldwide are now offering vegan menu items for the benefit of their students as well as implementing meatless days. For example in Yulin County, Formosa (Taiwan), at least 75 public elementary and middle schools now have one day a week where meals without animal products are served, with five schools providing such meals twice a week. Other counties on the island are also adopting this wonderful trend as well.

To support Meatout day, for today’s lunch we provide only vegetables and beans, without any meat. And the students are very healthy after eating. I hope everyone would respond to March 20, the international Meat-out day Meatout Day. Yeah!

Vegetarian food is delicious!

Now the Earth is warming. Being vegetarian can reduce carbon emissions and also save energy. Being vegetarian is great!

There are plenty of free resources on the Internet and elsewhere to help one get started on the veg diet. For example the US-based non-profit group the Physician’s Committee for Responsible Medicine, which promotes preventative medicine, has created a free online “21-day Vegan Kickstart” program.

It includes a 21-day meal plan designed by esteemed US physician Dr. Neal Barnard, celebrity diet tips, nutrition webcasts by Dr. Barnard and others which feature weight loss advice and cooking demonstrations as well as an online community forum to interact with fellow participants in the program.

Meatout Day is a great opportunity for everyone to make a change in life, a change that will benefit not only your health and spirit, but also the condition of our planet in a profoundly constructive way. We applaud the Farm Animal Rights Movement for starting this wonderful annual tradition!

For more details on Meatout Day 2010, please visit www.MeatOut.org

Enthusiastic viewers, thank you for your company today on Healthy Living. Up next is Enlightening Entertainment, after Noteworthy News. May you and your loved ones enjoy many splendid vegan meals together.

In 2009, famed French photographer Yann Arthus –Bertrand directed a landmark eco-documentary which carefully examined how humanity’s actions in recent history have disrupted the ecosystems of our planet.

Our Earth relies on a balance, in which every being has a role to play and exists only through the existence of another being. A subtle, fragile harmony that is easily shattered.

Join us for Part 1 of the insightful eco- documentary “Home” Wednesday, March 17, on Planet Earth: Our Loving Home.